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Preparing for a patch

I wrote earlier this week about one of the Icecrown quests in WoW. I decided to complete more of those quests on an alt to remind myself of the storylines that had gripped me when I first ran them on my main, many months ago.

After all, patch 3.3 may well pick up those loose ends; loose ends that haven’t really been touched since Wrath went live, which is not one of Blizzard’s best storytelling decisions. As Rohan noted, usual screenwriting rules would require that the bad guy be in the ascendent when the last act of a three-act play begins. Instead we’ve beaten the Lich King on every encounter and taken time out to destroy an Old God and do some jousting en route.

Despite that, I’m excited to see what lies in store in patch 3.3. I’m looking forwards to venturing into the new 5 man instances with my friends and fighting a variety of scourge baddies alongside my NPC faction leader. I’m looking forwards to the new raid and to finding out how the Lich King storylines draw to a close, or at least to a new start.

So my current goal is to redo all of the Icecrown quests on an alt before the patch hits so as to refresh my memory.

Is there anything you particularly like to do to prepare for a patch, either in WoW or in another MMO? (It is after all that that patching time of year.)

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5 thoughts on “Preparing for a patch”

I’d love to have seen how Blizzard would have coped with the Lich King ‘winning’ throughout End-game while giving players a sense of achievment.
They did it really well with the Drakkuru Quests in Grizzly (and the climax in DTK), with the follow-up chain in Zul Drak where you get your revenge.
If they’d have twisted Naxxramas so that Kel’Thuzad had rebelled against Arthas and you didn’t know till you killed him, what would be the incentive for you re-run that instance other than gear, with the knowledge that each time you do it you’re playing into the Lich Kings hands?
It would take more than some simple hand-waving to make an end-game instance re-playable when in essence you’re destined to lose.

It’s tricky, and likely to feel railroaded but we’ve been railroaded into doing a lot of dubious quests in Wrath. There’s the torture, helping the RAS prepare their plague, being marked for zombiedom in the Drakuru questline, for example.

So there could be a set of phased quests that act as attunement for the current new 5 man instance and tell the story of how the lich king threatens all we hold dear and maybe even holds our character’s souls in the palm of his hand

Or it could be done as a prophecy or flash forward. Somehow we get a glimpse into the future and it’s a dark Azeroth with no hope of redemption (yes I have seen flash forward recently).

And as to why people would redo content that tells a gloomy story? Just throw some epics in :)

You can certainly build into scripted events. I can imagine a Mt Hyjal like scenario when we breach the Lich kings lair…and that could easily have a several phased battle with it going his icynessess way for a while before our Heroes seize the day and win the fight for Alliance/Horde (or, you know, wipe a lot) but over the course of an expansion?

But computer gaming right from Moria and Nethack has been built on a steady progression of harder and harder Bosses/challenges untill the final one….with very few exceptions. Okay so your guild might wipe on K’T or Yoggi for months but eventually you’ll either win or move on to play something else or into the next raid so the Boss never ‘wins’. Maybe it could be done in sort of ‘Final Battle/Dunkirk’ version of the Sunwell event. The Big bad is winning and your guild goes in to hold the breach as long as possible….if you ‘win’ the raid you’ve stalled his offesive for a few hours…your commanders thank you and you leave watching another npc group go in to fill the breach. This scores up points or whatever and after however many the event changes and we get to go on the offesive? Of course that means the event ends and the code is ‘wasted’so some version of it by dailys like sunwell would be better….but that counter is the key to keeping people fighting the good fight.

We have NOT beaten the Lich King.
He’s sarcastically inserted himself into newbie Northrend quests and commented on our progress – all the way until we ‘prepare’ for him in the Coliseum. But he seems to be doing well, and not the least impressed with us.

I think shortly before 3.3 hits, we’ll get to see what a threat he is to US, and properly motivated for the third act of this expansion (since TOC doesnt’ really count).

I’m sure in ‘preparation’ I’ll still be tying up lots of loose ends. I can’t imagine my guild will have Algalon down since we’re pretty much clearing TOC/Ony and working heroic TOC only now, but I’d love to get that done. If not, /shrug, I’ll still be raiding and picking up the random achievement on my main, and playing with some RL buddies on my alt. But yes, I really look forward to invading the Frozen Throne and the challenges that await there!